Crazy TEC water chiller idea/question...

Maybe this has been done or proposed before, but I keep going over it in my head, and although it seems like a good idea, I'm still not sure. I've looked alot into TECs and how they're used on processors, and just recently came aware of the fact that they can be used to chill the water before it reaches the processor, or in place of a radiator all together, so here's my idea.

Ok, say that you're gonna watercool your processer, and you want to put a water chiller on. Now, from what I know, the best way is to have the water running on the cold side, and passively/actively cool the hot side some way. Would it be feasible to have setup, say, where the same TEC that is chilling the water, is also being cooled on the hot side by the same system? Basically, you would go pump -> radiator -> TEC cold -> processor -> TEC warm -> resevoir -> pump. It seems sort of dumb at first, but if you think about it, it should technically work if you have a radiator that's big enough to cool both the processor and the TEC to room temperature BEFORE it hits the TEC cold side to be chilled BELOW room temperature. Say, a big triple 120mm radiator or whatever.

Or maybe I havn't been getting enough sleep. Anyway, sorry if this has been brought up before.

I do not know how well that would work, why not just put the TEC straight on the CPU? You will most likely see MUCH better results.

agreed, because in fact the specific heat of water is pretty high, so it takes a lot of energy removed to cool it for little return. Direct contact would be best, and if you already have a water cooling system in place why not just use it on the other side, I mean thats what makes sense.

My reasons for doing something similar:
Pelts arent that expensive, the block-coldplate-insulation kit to replace your WB probably is.
I'm not looking for sub-zero temps on CPU/GPU, I just want to turn down my fans a bit.
I dont want the installation/upkeep associated with sub-zero temps.
I can use one 'medium sized' pelt to cool both devices and not have to rig in another PSU.

The only difference is that I will be air cooling the pelt, SLK 900 + blowers.
As for water cooling the pelt I think that, while yes you may be transfereing the heat to a different part of the loop, you will actually see higher average water temps. A big enough rad might make the difference... Wont know until you try it, or someone who has tried it chips in.

the benefit of a system like this is that you wouldnt have to run the pelt side all the time if you didnt want too. with a traditional tec installation you would have to have it running 100% of the time you used your computer or it would act as a insulator on your cpu/gpu.

the problem with using the same wc loop to cool the hotside of the tec as you where cooling your cpu will probably give you higher temps than not running anything at all. of course ive never tried this but im sure someone who has or knows someone who has will chime in.

i do recall reading something along these lines but cant remember if it was here or at xtremesystems

A few things to look at here, While TEC's are not that expensive, the power supplies are. Add to that the cost of another waterblock and cooling assy. you could of got a cold plate and insulation kit. Now if your like me and have a box of discarded CPU fan/heatsinks and want to pop for say three 80 watt Tec's and GPU blocks then that may make a considerable difference in water temp. All three could be powered from one Meanwell 320. The reason for three 80's rather than one 226 is air cooling one of these does not work that well, They are just too hot. Never cool a TEC with the same loop it is cooling, you just add whatever wattage the TEC is to the water. Ok unless you have most of the materials already the $300 or so you spent could have been used to cool the die directly to -6 or so with a 226 watt TEC and good rad.

I'm kind of looking at this the way Shuruga is. I feel this would be a way to get colder water temps, without all the insulation mess with the CPU. I don't want sub-zero temps, I just want lower temps than normal. I'm also thinking about putting an NV-68 on the same loop, so this would benefit the video card as well, without having to go through the same crap of insulating the video card along with the CPU. I'm just trying to kill two birds with one stone here, but if even a triple fan radiator couldn't get that water back down to room temperature before it hits the cold side again, then I suppose there's no point in doing it.

The only way it might work then is if I do it like hawtrawkr said, and put the TEC on a switch or temperature activate it somehow, and anytime I put the computer under load, I could turn it on and REALLY crank up the fans to compensate.

I'm pretty certian that this would actually raise your water temps. That pelt is going to be dumping it's full wattage into the water, and although you will get a higher delta T at the radiator, I'm pretty sure the extra heat lost there won't make up for what the pelt adds.

JudgeDredd:

Yes! it would work if the radiator somehow magically turned the water to room temp.
The extra cooling temperature difference the TEC would add would be around 0.1C.

In a ordinary cooling loop the water temperature doesn't vary much from point to point. Maybe +0.1 to +0.5C MAX! The better flow, the smaller temperature difference in/out of radiator.

When the radiators watertemp is the same as ambient temp, the radiator efficency is 0%. The only way for a radiator to cool water is if the water is hotter than ambient temp. The water has to stand still for it to reach ambient. As soon as the water is moving it won't be cooled to ambient any more.

The higher temperature difference between hot water / ambient air the higher efficiency will be achieved.
If you increase the heatload, the temperature of water will rise until the radiators efficiency is increased enough to deal with the present heatload.